Though Broadway has been fairly unkind to a number of 1960s-era musicians – with everything from Paul Simon’s “The Capeman” to Twyla Tharp’s Dylan-based dance musical, “The Times They are a-Changin’” to this season’s Shlomo Carlebach tuner “Soul Doctor” coming a cropper – hope springs eternal (for some producers, anyway) that Boomers will flock to the theater to hear the music they grew up with. The latest attempt to bring Woodstock a hundred miles south to midtown Manhattan opened on Thursday, Oct. 10, via “A Night with Janis Joplin”.
Written and directed by Randy Johnson, the show tells the life story of songstress Joplin, celebrates her musical influences (such as Aretha Franklin and Bessie Smith), and, of course, raises the rafters with such songs as “Ball and Chain,” “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Piece of My Heart.” Playing Joplin is Mary Bridget Davies, who, though making her Broadway debut, toured in the similarly themed “Love, Janis” before doing the tryout tour of “A Night with…”. Author/director Johnson is also a Broadway newbie, but his credits include The Grand Ole Opry, Madison Square Garden, Milwaukee Rep and the Pasadena Playhouse. He was also an original producer of “Always…Patsy Cline”. Patricia Wilcox, the choreographer, won last season’s Astaire Award for her work on “Motown: The Musical”.
Early word of mouth on the musical was of the expected “loved her, not the show” variety, but did the critics follow suit?
Certainly the Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney did. He griped about the “by-the-numbers” script: “In the overwritten patter for Joplin that links the songs, (author Randy) Johnson appears to be aiming to tap the collective spirit of oppressed womanhood thirsting for liberation across the decades. But that theme is expressed too mechanically to resonate, and great as she is on the vocals, Davies is not a good enough actor to smooth out the script’s many clunky transitions.” However, he lauds “Davies’ electric renditions of the songs, wild and joyously raucous one minute and ragged with sorrow the next.”
Variety’s Marilyn Stasio concurs, opening her review with “As a musical biography, `A Night with Janis Joplin’ is pretty much a bust.” But “as a concert…the show is something else, a celebration of blues and those beautiful bruises they leave on the singer’s soul.” She raves that Davies “looks like Joplin, sings like Joplin, howls like Joplin…in a role-of-a-lifetime that she owns.”
Ditto BroadwayWorld’s Michael Dale, who admits, “while `A Night with Janis Joplin’ has its flaws as drama, as a raucous, hyper-energized tribute to one of American music's great icons, it's a joyful explosion.” Like other critics, Dale’s disappointed that the biography told here is “upbeat and cheery” and minimizes her troubles with alcohol, drugs and self-loathing, but he caps the review with a reminder that as a concert, it’s a “rowdy and heartfelt celebration.”
In his three-star Daily News review, Joe Dziemianowicz tips his hat to Davies’ vocals: “The husky rasp, pain-streaked shrieks and reckless, full-throttle abandon are all there. It’s a vocal-cord-shredding role,” he writes, also complimenting the “kickass band.” However, he also grouses, “where the script goes irritatingly wrong is Joplin’s near-lecturing on the blues.”
In his moderately positive review, The New York Times’ Charles Isherwood goes even further, noting that this Joplin spends so much time sensibly discussing the blues, it’s kind of hard to imagine her actually living them. Isherwood joshes that the show includes “more than enough [tunes] to fill a full PBS pledge-drive special” but acknowledges that Davies sings them with “a throbbing fervor that is often riveting.” Although he says the show could probably be condensed to one act, he doesn’t deny that it kicks into “high gear” in act two.
Even more positive is the Associated Press’ Jennifer Farrar, who, though chastising the book for sentimentalizing and “whitewashing” Joplin’s self-destructive patterns, compliments Davies’ “lively, energetic performance” and closes the critique by noting the “dynamic use of lighting, projections, sound design and the choreography of Patricia Wilcox [help] Johnson create a high-caliber spectacle around the compelling story of a uniquely talented singer-songwriter who embodied her generation's passionate attitudes.”
The only out-and-out stinker review so far comes from Newsday’s Linda Winer, who sighs that “A Night with Janis Joplin” is “just another cheese-ball tribute like the ones that mass-market the singularity of Elvis and The Beatles.” In bringing this Joplin to Broadway, author Johnson has “scrubbed her up and domesticated her into just another ordinary '60s chick,” rather than a trailblazing comet whose persona paved the way for (but was far removed from) the tongue-wagging, meat-wearing antics of current pop divas. She snipes that though actress Davies “has the lungs, the notes and the screaming moan” of Joplin’s singing, her acting is “too externalized” to touch the real icon’s vulnerability and sexuality.
In her not-quite-as-negative but still dispirited, two-and-a-half-star review for USA Today, Elysa Gardner also complains about the rough edges being sandpapered off the show’s subject. Though she calls Davies “utterly credible,” the show has a distinctly “post-`American Idol’” feel in which “several numbers devolve into showboating.” She continues, “These numbers were among several that whipped the crowd into a happy frenzy. Indeed, those who believe that no note can be sung too loudly, or with too much melodrama, will find much to love… The rest of us can at least admire the talent being displayed, exhaustively, before trudging home.”
“A Night with Janis Joplin” started previews Sept. 20 at Broadway’s Lyceum Theater. Oct. 4 marked the 43rd anniversary of the singer’s drug-related death at the age o
